


The 'Other' Guy

by fuckinsteverogers



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bit of Rightfully placed anger, F/M, nothing - Freeform, some steamy kissin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 12:18:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17406782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuckinsteverogers/pseuds/fuckinsteverogers
Summary: You’ve always admired Bruce, for his control, his genius, his all-around loveliness and when you and the girls go shopping and all you can find is Hulk Merch, it doesn’t sit right with you, and you do everything in your power to find some Bruce Banner merch.





	The 'Other' Guy

**Author's Note:**

> I would tag the post I got inspired from this, but I’ve had this in my drafts for months that I wouldn’t be able to find it even if I tried, but it was just about the Avengers reactions to you wearing merch with their superhero names and such; Bruce not being for it, obviously because of his dislike of the other guy.
> 
> But I had some inspiration to finish it today for some reason so I hope you like it.

Your favourite jeans tearing was warranted enough to go shopping for the first time in months. What you didn’t expect was to really enjoy it. 

Natasha, Wanda, Pepper and Maria had asked to tag along, and somehow, you found yourselves with not only Tony’s credit card but also in a store with all of the Avengers merchandise.

Even yours… The newest, least popular Avenger with t-shirts with your name and face on them, with your symbol, but that wasn’t what made you stop and stare.

“Y/N, are you okay?” Pepper asks, her hand spreading across your shoulder, looking down at the shirt you have scrunched up in your palms. Anger coursing through your body.

“Even when we tell the world about his hatred of his other half, they still print his name and face on shirts and wear them, showing their support for the monster but not for the man,” You reply, to Pepper but also generally. Your mind wandering to him, to his smile and his laugh, to his hands working over the screen, writing calculations and devising new plans. You have an admiration for him that is indescribable, for his mind and his work, and how the world still sees the Hulk stand above him baffles you.

“The Hulk is all they see,” Pepper tells you. 

You know she is right. You know they see the Hulk in public more than Bruce Banner, but it doesn’t stop the anger coursing through you, bleeding from within your veins.

You stand your ground, throwing the Hulk shirt down and pull out your phone, convincing yourself that there has to be some Bruce Banner merchandise.

You imagine Bruce’s face as you scroll through the possibilities… a sweatshirt, a tank top… all with his face on it. You wonder if he’d be surprised, happy, annoyed; all the possibilities swirl through your head as you click overnight shipping and return to the real world.

The anger leaves you as you leave the store, travelling to a new one in search of a new pair of jeans, eyes following the group as you walk throughout the shopping mall.

“He’d love that on you,” Wanda comments as you hold a dress over your front, the soft material dragging against your naked calves. 

“Who will love it?” You ask, your eyes lifted to hers, her fingers dragging through the rack of shirts. She raises her eyebrows at you and gives you a look, a look saying ‘you know who’. “No, he won’t.”

“Yes, he will. He hardly takes his eyes off of you,” Maria pitches in, her arms full of clothes. You shake your head, annoyance rising in your stomach. How stupid, you think.

“Don’t be silly,” Is all you say, turning your attention back to the task at hand, ignoring your colleague’s protests and picking up a jacket to go with the dress.

You think absentmindedly as you shop, piles of clothing in your arms, that maybe they are right. Sometimes, in the lab, you look up quickly and catch the slight glimpse of his eyes plastered to you before they redirect to his project. Maybe he does feel the same and he hasn’t had the chance to tell you.

You let the thought wash you away as you shop, thinking about him, about his smile, about the ways his eyes light up when he’s working, about every moment you capture through your eyes, through the fondness you feel for him.

It’s so silly, you tell yourself, that this effects you so much, knowing the world sees him as the Hulk and not as Bruce Banner, as the man with extensive knowledge in Biochemistry, Gamma Radiation, and Nuclear Physics.

You try to stray from the thoughts and return to shopping, slowly piling clothing into your arms and using Tony’s credit card to pay for them, leaving the stores heading in the direction of the Avengers facility.

You are eager for your package, not just because of the face you’ll get to dorn on your breasts, but also because it’ll show your admiration for him and not what hides beneath his skin.

The day comes three short ones later in the shape of a poorly packaged article of clothing with the face of the man you love on it. You slip the shirt on underneath the leather jacket you had bought just three days earlier, and leave to go join the party in the common room, knowing the reaction you’ll gain from basically shouting to the Avengers that your feelings for Bruce are anything but platonic.

The nerves overtake you slowly, you begin to worry about whether he’ll actually like it, or if he’ll just think you’re stupid. The thought almost makes you turn back to your room, but somehow you find yourself stepping into the elevator and pressing the button, determined to change this thing going on between you and Bruce.

Tony is the first to see you when you step out of the elevator, his grin turning megawatt as his eyes graze over your form, finding the face on your shirt.

“That is fantastic,” Is what he says, drawing everyone’s attention to where his eyes are directed… at you. Your stomach turns into knots when you see him, all brown, messy hair, his brown eyes flickering to yours and then down to your shirt, and his skin sprouts the most delectable colour of pink.

Natasha clears her throat and makes a move for the door, clearly uncomfortable with the situation of Bruce’s blushing skin and your clear advertence to your feelings for him.

It’s so like her to be uncomfortable in romantic situations, especially involving someone she still held feelings for.

You wanted to lay it all on the table, give him the option to either accept or reject your advances. You’ve always been brash and honest, if not a bit subdued at times, but with his light pink cheeks and floor-drawn attention, you begin to wonder whether this was a wise idea.

Everyone goes back to what they’re doing when you move to pour yourself a glass of sangria that Natasha has so graciously made for the party and take a long sip, enough to dull the ache of embarrassment rising beneath your skin.

“I… I don’t know what to say,” you turn your attention to the voice, and there stands a still-beet red Bruce Banner, his hands fidgeting in front of him.

“You don’t have to say anything,” You respond, leaning your hip against the counter. You did this more to show him that you see him before the Hulk than to demand a declaration.

“Why me?” He asks next. It’s a valid question. Why him? Surely you had your options; a beautiful, smart mechanical engineer. But, as you look at him, his face plastered on your shirt, and his beet-red face positioned gorgeously in front of you; you realise the same for him, he has a goddess-like assassin pining after him, and still he stands in front of you. He is powerful for more than just the Gamma Radiation that turned him into the hulk. He is Bruce Banner. That’s all you’ve ever wanted.

“Why did I choose a shirt with your face on it or why am I wearing it?” You ask fairly similar questions in practice. You look expectedly at him and he just smiles lightly, nervous and shy about this situation. When he doesn’t reply, you shift closer, an inch from him, so close that you can feel the heat from his body radiating against your colder one. 

“Because I respect you-” You press a finger into his chest and hold it there, “- you as Bruce Banner and not as the Hulk. I respect you as a colleague, a teammate, a scientist and engineer, a friend, and a man.”

Bruce looks taken aback as he lifts a shaking hand to yours, instead of removing it like you thought he would, he shifts it and pressed it flat against his cloth covered chest. You feel the rippling muscles beneath your palm, the heat sending shivers up your spine. He flattens his hand over yours and you both stand there like that for a while, and it feels intimate. 

“Why a man?” He asks after a while of silence, of just staring into each other’s eyes in comfortable, loving silence. You spread your fingers wider and bunch his shirt in your fist slightly, smiling at the question.

“Because you’re a man,” You reply, smiling sweetly at your colleague. He smiles back and suddenly, an act of confidence that you’ve never seen before; he pulls you flush into his body, your hand still gripping his shirt and his still gripping yours.

“I don’t think that’s the only reason, Y/N,” Bruce states. It doesn’t need an answer, because his lips are so close to yours and he smells like sangria and cologne. His hot breath fans over you and you’re so caught up in the moment, his lips stagnant in their place a mere inch from yours.

“Just kiss already!” Sam quirks up. 

The sound of his voice almost makes you turn your head towards him, but Bruce’s hands are gripping your cheeks and his lips are honing in on yours.

“Everyone is watching,” You say quickly because fuck, everyone is going to see the kiss and you both will never live it down. 

Then he smiles, big and happy, and your heart skips a beat.

“For once, I don’t care about the attention,” He replies, deep voice coating your bones in desire.

And he kisses you.

Full lips pressed against yours, the taste of sangria mingling as your heads tilt and his tongue swipes into your mouth. This is a whole another side of Bruce that you never expected to see… or, well, feel; dominant in this form, even for just a kiss.

Both of your hands fist his shirt and you kiss him back full-force. You are so overwhelmed and invested in the kiss, the feeling of his hands on you, the warmth of his mouth, the taste of wine, the slight moan that comes up his throat; that you don’t notice the hooting and hollering from the team.

The kiss is magnetic, shivers running all the way down to your toes, and as the hooting and hollering dies down, so does the kiss and you both pull away from each other.

Staring into his brown eyes, the response to the kiss is wordless. There is no word in any language that could describe that kiss.

As scientists, as people who work alone a majority of the time, seclusion is a way of life, but when you feel the remnants of his tongue on yours and his lips caressing yours, his warmth, his hands; seclusion alone is the last thing you want. 

You grip the collar of his shirt in a moment of confidence and pull him flush against you again.

“Let’s go somewhere more private,” You offer. Bruce’s eyes widen slightly, probably not expecting your openness so soon, how fast you’re going, but that doesn’t stop his pupils dilating and his tongue jutting from his mouth to wet his lips.

“Lead the way, Doctor Y/L/N.”

All you do is grin and turn, and leave the party with a very eager Bruce coming up behind you to take your hand and go on this ride with you.


End file.
